The long night, before Roger came

8. August 1981, a Saturday. In Germany and Switzerland, the Single "Bette Davis Eyes" by Kim Carnes, the hit parade, the "Neue Zürcher Zeitung" on your image-free front page with the headline "lack of time and impatience in Poland".

In the sports section to read that the German high skipped the jumper and former Olympic champion Ulrike Meyfarth in Rhede in the first attempt of the national record height of 1.96 meters and the Spaniard Jose Higueras is excreted in the tennis tournament in Indianapolis.

Robert Federer has begun the day before a tennis tournament on the ice rink, the Bosco tournament, to which he is advancing at the double with his Partner Heini Baumgartner into the final. In the evening, with his small motorcycle elated home in Birsfelden, just to see how his heavily pregnant wife, Lynette. "It is still nothing happens," she tells him. He can then go quickly to Rheinfelden, he replies. There is another tournament taking place, where he knows a lot of people, the status of the tournament.

"Robert, you better come home"

It is a beautiful Friday evening. In the club house, the mood is good and is always progressing even better as the evening progressed. As two o'clock in the morning, the telephone in the club house sounds – phones there is no – do not show one of the guests, understand what it is about, and hangs up again.

Robert Federer observed the scene, and suddenly he is taken aback: "I thought: Gopferteggel, it was Lynette?" As the phone rings shortly thereafter, he ran. "It was, indeed, Lynette. She said: "You better come home.""

On behalf of Roger agreed with the parents, because it can easily be used in English to Express: Rotscher.

he does, scared, driving with the Moped home, and from there with his wife to the cantonal hospital of Basel. There he considers a Moment, looking for some Jasspartner to bridge with card games, the Wait. But then it suddenly goes fast. 8:30 a.m. Lynette brings her second child: a Boy, 3710 grams heavy, 54 inches tall.

"He had huge feet," she recalls. In the name of Roger, the parents have agreed, because he can easily be used in English to Express: Rotscher. Federer is also the English way of speaking its Name, the French prefer. "My name is Rotscher," he says clearly as a seventeen-year-old, "Roschée sounds so terrible sweet, that's just awful."

What mother and son have in common

The birth doesn't stop the father from riding on a horse in the afternoon, the double final of the Bosco tournament, and he wins with his Partner. He and his wife had at the time, played a lot of tournaments, he recalls. "We had a tennis life. Especially as we had no children yet. We were at the Bosco tournament, the Birsegg tournament, at the Basler Championships, always in tournaments."

Robert and Lynette are strong regional players. He reached in the Swiss-Tennis-classification, the level of R3, Lynette long to the category R2. "We both played relatively aggressively, and were no slouch at the baseline, around," says Robert, his friends, Robbie. "Lynette had a strong Slice on the backhand like Roger." With two small children – Diana has come two years earlier to the world – must take up their Hobby, but then something in the Background.

Know the two in 1970, South Africa Kempton Park in Johannesburg. Robert Federer is from Berneck, St. Gallen Rhine valley, in the far North-East of Switzerland, near the lake Constance and the border to Austria. The trained Laboratory technician, works in the Swiss chemical industry of the capital city of Basel, before it pulls him into the wide world.

Lynette played field hockey. Together with Robert, she discovered, then, Tennis , in the Swiss Club of Johannesburg.

It is a coincidence that he comes with a 24 to South Africa. And also, that he finds again his former employer, in Kempton Park, an office, a Job.

Robert learns the six years younger Lynette Durand in the company cafeteria. She is the daughter of a factory foreman who served in the Second world war in Europe, his family as well as Afrikaans also speak English, and his four children in an English school. Lynette grew up in this neighborhood, graduated from a trade school, is now working as a clerk and is saving money to visit one day Europe.

Lynette is a talented and dedicated Athlete. In field hockey it's part of a regional selection, these sports but, because she has to get through the many blows of the problems with the legs. Together with Robert she discovered Tennis, the Swiss Club of Johannesburg.

The momentous move to Switzerland

in 1973, attracts the young Couple on a whim in Switzerland, where it refers to in Basel, a three-room apartment. It does start hard in the tight and cold country, and longs to be back in South Africa. In December, is married, both are working again at the Ciba-Geigy. And both now play more intense Tennis, TC Ciba, the company's own club in Allschwil.

As you can afford a better apartment, drag you to the outskirts of the city, first to Birsfelden, and then to Riehen, and from there to Munich stone, where the children will mostly grow up.

Lynette celebrates as a tennis player your best success in 1995, as it brings with a Team of the TC Old Boys the Swiss champion title of the Young seniors. Tennis remains her passion, as a mother of two. She is a Junior trainer at the TC Ciba and helps for over ten years at the world class tournament in Basel, the Swiss Indoors, in the just two kilometers away and St. Jakob-Halle. (Sunday newspaper)

Created: 31.03.2019, 14:33 PM